Electronic resources: New online portal EUscreen brings together TV clips from across Europe

Over 14,000 items of archived TV footage from tens of European countries are now available via the EUscreen online portal. 

EUscreen – the result of collaboration between 36 partners across Europe – provides a rich insight into Europe’s television heritage with content dating from the 1920s to the present day. EUscreen offers free online access to videos, stills, texts and audio from European broadcasters and audiovisual archives.

Materials of the new resource have been arranged into 4 key sections: “Topics”, “Genres”, “Languages” and “Providers”. The “Topics” section includes the following themed collections: “Arts and culture”, “Being European”, “Disasters”, “Education”, “Environment and Nature”, “Health”, “History of European Television”, “Lifestyle and consumerism”, “National holidays, festivals, anniversaries and annual events”, “Politics and Economics”, “Religion and belief”, “Society and social issues”, “Special Collections”, “The media”, “Transportation, science and technology”, “Wars and conflict” and “Work and production”.

Users can also discover portal’s content in the “Genres” section: “Advertisements”, “Drama/Fiction”, “Entertainment and Performing Arts”, “Factual”, “Interstitials and trailers”, “News”, “Sport”.

The expansive footage has also proved popular as a learning aid for foreign language students, with clips available in 14 languages.

The portal includes rare footage and commentary on key events in history, including a 1962 interview with Martin Luther King about racial discrimination in the US. 

As one of the main audiovisual content aggregators for Europeana, EUscreen and its collection is also connected to an online collection of millions of digitized items from European museums, libraries and archives.

The three year EUscreen project began in October 2009 and is funded by the European Commission. The project aims to standardise and provide a framework for the diverse collections held throughout Europe and encourage exploration of Europe’s rich and diverse history.

By the end of September 2012, there will be around 30,000 items of digital content freely available on the portal as the European providers continue to add carefully selected material.